Healing is a delicate business
by Ejunkiet
Summary: Canon-divergence, from the beginning of the Fourth Great Shinobi Ninja War. Healing in general is a delicate business, which can easily descend into a death sentence during war. It's under these circumstances that two unlikely souls are inevitably brought into contact once more. Short and sweet.


**Healing is a delicate business**

**AN/** Something that was written over last summer, and finished recently. Short and sweet.

Disclaimer: these characters are borrowed from Kishimoto-sama with love. e

* * *

His eyes slid open slowly, pulling against the weight that dragged them back to the darkness that clung to his consciousness, to focus on the gleam of pink that shone in the bright light at the doorway. It moved, surrounded by a flurry of movement as it dipped and wove for a moment, before it grew nearer, and he could distinguish the strands that cupped a pale complexion, delicate lips and light green eyes. He followed her movements, as she shifted her weight and rose to her feet, growing closer, the sound of crinkling paper and plastic reaching his ears, and as his mind connected the scene, and the collection of the stained and discarded medicals supplies, he realized this meant she was leaving.

His eyes slipped shut, smothering the world in the darkness that he was all too familiar with, as he tried to reconcile that realization and the pain that pulled within his chest.

It was too early. The statement was accompanied by something strong and urgent within his chest, that tugged of scar tissue as his lungs abruptly expanded and stretched at his newly healed wounds. The sensation grew, until it overcame him; and it was not medical attention he needed, but her presence. Until he could say what he wanted, needed, to say.

Determination gave him strength, and the darkness was pushed away, his vision returning once again to receive the light. Tongue sweeping his dry lips, he called her name across the short distance, annoyance at the way his voice broke so easily in the dry air quickly masked by an easy pleasure as she turned. Her eyes found his, curious as they scanned his features to visually assess his condition, before her eyes met his with a spark of joy, the lines of strain on her face dropping away as she gave into a crooked grin.

Her whisper was soft in the air as her eyes made contact with his, warming as she turned to him fully. "I hope you'll join us soon, Gaara-sama. Sleep some more."

Her touch was cool as she reached over gently to make contact with his head, and before he could speak, the soft glow of chakra had infiltrated his senses, softening the world's edges as it swept him towards the darkness. He could feel her fingers as they brushed away strands of his hair, grown too long during the war, before he felt nothing at all.

* * *

"Sakura! You are needed at the eastern flank, immediately. Bring everything."

The urgency in her teacher's bark was unmistakable, even from the miniature form of Katsuya, and it was with mounting alarm that the impromptu war medic had grabbed all of the supplies she had on her and pegged it into the forest that separated the two camps. The scant few miles of landscape that separated the two fronts of the united shining alliance were largely deserted at this time of the war, abandoned purely for the reason that it had no useful qualities to serve as a war front, and so her passage had been made in record speed, just under the one-hour mark. Despite the work put in by her aching muscles and tendons, boosted by the scarce chakra she had pumped into her limbs, the distance was just too far for her travel time to be cut any more, and when she finally arrived, panting and dirty, in the camp of the Kages, her racing heart had been afraid she was too late.

Another tall nin she didn't recognize had grabbed her arm as soon as she had stepped in camp, and before she could ask just where her patient was, Sakura had found herself shoved through the doors of the main tent, facing a flurry of indistinguishable activity. The room stank, almost as if rotten carrion had been left for a week, and Sakura had stared about the crowded tent in bewildered confusion. Catching a flash of blonde at the far edge, hands tightening around her gear, she had made to move forward to her Shishou - when her eyes caught sight of the crimson stained table, and it was then that she saw their patient.

Or what was left of him. The charred and soot stained flesh was barely recognizable as human, although the stature and the number of his ribs, that she could count _sticking through his chest_ identified him as a male. Her breath caught in her throat, and she air pressed the urge to gag as another wave of that sickly sweet odour filled her nostrils, and she realized in horror that it was _him_ that it appeared to be emanating from.

There was a soft shuffle of sound at her shoulder, and her wide eyes met the serious golden of her teacher. Mouth opening, she blurted the only thing that rang through her mind: "how is he alive?"

Her teacher's eyes flickered back to the living corpse on the table, and the dozen ninjas that surrounded it, hands outstretched as the soft glow of their chakras mingled, before returning to her student with a weary smile. "Them." Her expression shifted as, aged, the older woman turned back to her student, a bitter tilt to her lips. "I cannot help him."

The woman sagged, as if a great weight had settled on her smaller frame as the light within amber eyes dulled, a deep sigh reverberating from her chest. The lines of exhaustion and stress deepened, and suddenly the proud woman that had the strength of a hundred men seemed older than her age, as if she could break. Without realizing it, her hand reached out to her _shishou_, but it was brushed away with a light huff and a look, before amber eyes returned to the green glow of chakra on the table. "You will save the Kazekage, Sakura. You _must_."

* * *

The eyes of her patient were glazed, the dilation of his pupils making his state unable to focus, as his hooded lids emphasizing the deep shadowing beneath his eyes as they followed her movements around him. Moving from one side of the tent to the other as she checked the dwindling supplies, mentally sorting the requests she'd have to make into the queues of priority, she watched, and listened carefully, hoping, and praying, for some indication of consciousness, instead of another drug-fuelled delirium. She'd not been here for the first time he had woken, but one of the medics on hand had nearly been killed – as even without the Shukaku, the sand casing that guarded Gaara's skin had awakened with a vengeance. It was only through the subversion of medical jutsu that they had managed to remove his chakra, and subdue his sand. Since then, Sakura had agreed to heal him, and wait, and since the first incident, the weeks of time which she had spent with him had been quiet, intermittent with only a few moments of lucidity, before he fell back into his dreams.

The last time had been a week and a half ago_._

There was a clattering, and she glanced down to see that the equipment in her hands shaking, her fingers trembling against the metal. Kami, it had been _three weeks_ since she had been assigned this task. Three weeks in this coma. She forced her hands into fists, stopping their shivers through willpower alone, before she pushed forward to medical station situated at the opposite end of the tent. Adding them to the sterilization queue, she brought her empty fists to her head, clenching them in her hair, before she forced out a ragged breath. The thoughts she had been avoiding, the one that preyed on her during those small periods of peace between emergency medical shifts, were getting harder to escape. _What if she had killed him?_

It took one brisk, sharp head shake, and she was on her way, medical instruments returned to their proper places, the recovery room stocks checked, before it was time to check the machines that monitored his condition. Annotating his medical chart - slight increase in blood pressure, but nothing serious, the rest of his vitals stable - she smoothed her hands down her clothes in a vain attempt to regain some control – and she paused, as she caught sight of her reflection. Patting at the stubborn fabric to banish the crinkles was nice and all, but with the state of her clothes – not to mention her hands, which were stained light pink, she was a _wreck_. Her pale complexion was off-colour, despite her frequent washes, and her smile faltered as she realized just how much blood had sunken into her pores during these weeks of war, the lives that had fluttered beneath her hands - and before she could stop herself, she _saw it all;_ images of blackened flesh that she had barely managed to stitch back together, her hands dripping crimson - and she was left shaking in the wake.

She clamped down on the images almost immediately, suppressing them and forcefully shoving them out of her mind, and back into the recesses of her mind. There, they would no doubt haunt her sleep – but now was not the time for this breakdown, for this moment. She glanced back at her sleeping patient out of habit, to remind herself what she was doing, _what she was here for_, and met a jade gaze that was, for once, _lucid_, that stopped her in her tracks.

His brow was furrowed, his pulse-rate and breathing faster as his head raised an inch from the pillow, obviously struggling to keep his gaze level. When she caught his eyes, his own breath had hitched, and as she approached his bedside, he took in her appearance, lingering on the bloodstains and signs of wear-and-tear on her clothes, before the tent surrounding them. When they met hers again, he did something she entirely did not expect – he _smiled._

"Sakura...san."

Her breath was caught in her throat, increasing the rate of her steps as she approached his bedside and stopped a short distance from the head. A glance at the beeping machines at his bedside assured her that this was happening, _real_. His eyes hadn't completely lost the glaze from the fever that had taken the medical teams days of struggle, but had regained a welcome clarity that seared away the stresses and fears that had haunted her during this brief segue. Somehow, against all of the odds,_ he had made it._

"Gaara-sama. Welcome back."


End file.
